[C: 70 Claws 2D10 DMG, I:50, W: 3(20), Pseudomilk Suck: After hit or vs. disabled android, Body save [-] or 4D10 DMG per round, Strength check to detach ]
On the jungle world of Kikkomari V, the milk-white sap of the cream-leaved kikkan palm trees had a significant bio-similarity to the pseudomilk “blood” of androids. (In both cases, the liquid served as a nutrient conveyor and an electrical conduit. In androids, this conductivity enhances the response of cybernetic bio-tissue, while in the kikkan palm it was a pest deterrent.)
While Dr. Skithar’s report on kikkan sap offers several tantalizing avenues of patentable exploitation – most notably the antigen TK cells and the albino fibrin cells which could potentially improve android self-repair functions – no clear case has been made for why these studies could not continue from lab-grown samples.
Therefore her request to expand the ecological preservation zone is DENIED.
See attached recommendations for expanded funding of the Prista Research Center.
Salem-Watts Corporate Directive
Kikkomari V
The kikkan palm existed in a semi-symbiotic relationship with the sapdrillers. The sapdrillers had long proboscises tipped with a curious “auger” structure consisting of a hard-tipped bony mass that could be rapidly pounded through a muscular spasm into the soft wood of the palm tree. In addition to drinking the sap of the trees, the sapdrillers would also eat various parasites that might otherwise kill the trees.
When the kikkan jungles were clearcut to make way for vast, corporate-owned android plantations, the sapdriller habitats were destroyed. They were, however, just one of many species caught in the middle of a mass extinction event well-catalogued by the planetary ecologists.
The sapdrillers, however, discovered that they had access to another abundant food source: The android plantation workers. Rapid evolutionary pressure transformed the sapdrinkers on Kikkomari V into the seivant diabo.
Seivant devils are ambush predators capable of short bursts of terrifying speed. Long, razor-sharp claws can disable androids, while their whip-like proboscis can lock onto a victim and then punch through flesh (and even light armor). Once attached, they’ll begin sucking up precious pseudomilk.
Excerpt: TSCS Law Enforcement Briefing Transcript
Ofc. Banks: The big brains tell me that “invasive species” isn’t the correct term because LX-510 doesn’t have a “natural biosphere” to disrupt, but I don’t know what else to call it.
We’ve traced the original source of the diabos to the Wittgenstein cartel. When they took down Herr Wittgenstein, no one thought to secure his private menagerie. Most everything else has been tracked down, but the milk-suckers are damn elusive. Worse yet, we’ve found at least one cache of their gelatinous eggs stuck under a toilet in Sector 4F. So there’s really no way to know how many of them are crawling around in the walls now.
In addition to enjoying a brief fad among rare animal collectors, there have been efforts by several mercenary companies and corporate security forces to train and domesticate seivant devils as an anti-android deterrent. The earliest examples were among the plantation security forces on Kikkomari V, where the seivant devils proved particularly adapt at tracking errant androids via scent.
For better of worse, this has led to seivant devils spreading to multiple worlds, their expansion seemingly only limited by the availability of their preferred prey.
You added a word to my cursed lexicon…